The camera phone is an interesting combination of networked PC and digital photographic technology. A company employee can purchase a handset, the price of which is often subsidized by the network operator, rather than wait for their IT department to provide them with one.

According to Wireless Healthcare, a UK based consultant specializing in mobile healthcare and ehealth, this fact is not lost on employees in the healthcare sector who are using standard mobile picture messaging services to trial new medical imaging applications such as wireless based PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication System).

In a report published this week, Wireless Healthcare points to an increasing number of trials that have been set up to test the performance of picture phones in medical imaging applications. According to Wireless Healthcare some of these trials fail on two levels; first the handsets and the picture messaging services cannot cope with high resolution medical images and, second, as neither the IT department or equipment vendor are involved in the trials, the lessons learned are not translated into enhanced products or improved services.

However, the report, “Wireless PACS – A Picture Of Health”, points out that, as trials using picture phones are simple to set up, interest in the use of mobile and wireless technology within medical imaging departments is growing. The report’s author, Peter Kruger, a medical imaging industry veteran, said. “In some respects we are seeing a re-run of the situation created by the launch of the microcomputer. Then, users found they could prototype applications at their desk without begging the IT manager for time on the organization’s mainframe. Some of these small applications form the basis of the medical imaging and PACS applications in use today.”

Wireless Healthcare’s report also draws attention to a number of ‘formal’ wireless applications, that is to say applications that do not rely on existing picture messaging services or the handset’s own camera. These applications use a PDA to retrieve images directly from a PACS database, as opposed to taking a picture of a hard copy x-ray film. According to the report formal applications are usually more successful as they use tools that enable sections of a large image to be viewed on a device with a small screen.

Wireless Healthcare believes the next generation of mobile handsets and PDAs, which are in their estimation will likely contain miniature hard disks and advanced CCD chips with a resolution almost as high as devices used in professional digital cameras, will broaden the range of imaging applications that employ wireless technology.